Trey Parker

How many times have you been watching an episode of 'South Park' and thought, 'I'd like to be able to watch this on my television while hooked into my mobile device, which is being controlled by my tablet device which is hooked into my oven, all while sitting in the refrigerator?'

A lot of people don't realize this, but probably the one person that gets made fun of in 'South Park' more than anybody is my dad. Stan's father, Randy - my dad's name is Randy - that's my drawing of my dad; that's me doing my dad's voice. That is just my dad. Even Stan's last name, Marsh, was my dad's stepfather's name.

You've probably heard the stories about how io9 got its name. And maybe you know that io9 co-founder Charlie Jane Anders and I were inspired by Kathy Keeton, whose groundbreaking magazine 'Omni' combined coverage of real science with science fiction. But what you probably don't know is how unlikely it was that io9 ever succeeded at all.